


indulge the other

by Dialux



Category: The Old Guard (Movie 2020)
Genre: Codependency, Established Relationship, M/M, Missing Scene, Trust And All Its Implications, how anger is often as much a burden as a relief
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-21
Updated: 2020-08-21
Packaged: 2021-03-06 21:47:31
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,206
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26025946
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Dialux/pseuds/Dialux
Summary: “Yusuf,” says Nicky, very, very seriously. “I leave the anger to you.”[How and who picks the punishment for Booker.]
Relationships: Joe | Yusuf Al-Kaysani/Nicky | Nicolò di Genova
Comments: 41
Kudos: 410





	indulge the other

**Author's Note:**

> Written for [this ask on tumblr.](https://dialux.tumblr.com/post/627058770243125248/pls-give-us-your-opinion-on-who-chose-bookers) The title, of course, comes from Frankenstein: "I have love in me the likes of which you can scarcely imagine and rage the likes of which you would not believe. If I cannot satisfy the one, I will indulge the other."

“We need to talk about it,” says Joe. 

Nicky doesn’t move, and it’s that which convinces Joe that there really is a problem. They’re in bed: tucked into a small alcove, really, more than anything, but they both want the breeze of an open window more than they want a proper bed. 

“Do we?” asks Nicky.

Joe looks at him. Studies him closely. 

He remembers the way Nicky’s spine had arched, the way air had punched out of his chest when Kozak tried to cut into his ribs. The skull fragments matting down Nicky’s hair. Nicky’s eyes are level on Joe, but he’s as still as he would be in a sniper’s perch: less calm and more forcibly frozen. He’s holding _himself_ in place.

“He deserves it,” says Joe. He swallows. Rolls away, so he’s flat on his back and not hovering above Nicky. “He deserves everything we give him. Aren’t you angry?”

“I leave the anger to you,” says Nicky, and kisses him on the cheek before getting out of bed.

...

Nicky kills half the crew that threw the iron maiden into the ocean before Andy puts an arrow between his ribs. They don’t talk about it afterwards; nobody else knows, not even Booker. Joe knows Nicky carries the guilt of that: perhaps one of those men could have led them to Quynh. Perhaps it is Nicky’s fault that their sister still drowns alive. 

But Joe had been there, and his scimitar had not stopped Nicky. He’d been unwilling to hurt Nicky, even for the sake of saving Quynh, and only shouting at him to stop. Nicky might carry the guilt of his actions: he has for more than four centuries.

But Joe carries the guilt of his own inaction.

...

They avoid it the next day as well. Joe drowns himself in cooking and getting supplies for the house- it’s been empty since a brief stint in 2002, so they need to replenish anyway- and Nicky takes the time to work through his gun supply in London; he leaves in the morning and retrieves all the guns he’s stored through the city and spends the rest of the day polishing and cleaning and readjusting them.

When Joe hands him a plate of something- he doesn’t know what it is himself, a fusion of African spices and Italian pastas and Vietnamese sauces- Nicky takes it. Quirks a brow at Joe. Says, quietly, “You up for driving tonight?”

“For you?” says Joe, though he can’t help but smile. “Always.”

...

There isn’t much that Joe remembers of his family, but he remembers this: asking his mother how she could love anyone for a lifetime.

_Trust them,_ she’d said. Her hands had smelled of cardamom. He cannot remember her eyes, or her hands; but when he cooks and smells cardamom, there are times when tears stand out in his eyes. _Trust them with everything you are and more, and you shall love beyond even ten lifetimes._

_..._

The drive is nice: quiet and calm and long, London’s streets slowly emptying of traffic. Joe doesn’t follow Nicky into the safehouses, just waits in the car as Nicky finishes up tidying. When they’re done, though, he drives them to a park. 

Nicky huffs out a laugh, though he doesn’t say anything. The park’s closed, but it doesn’t stop either of them; they just climb the fence, choose a particularly large tree and scale it until they can see the illuminated clouds high above the leaves.

“I’ll never understand why you like trees so much,” says Nicky finally.

Joe snickers. “I had coconut trees in my home,” he says, for perhaps the ten-thousandth time in his life. “You cannot climb coconut trees, my love. Not unless you are willing to risk a broken neck, and back then I did not think I would survive such a fall. You can imagine how I mourned my lost childhood when I came to your homeland.”

“Are you certain you didn’t have a coconut fall on your head?” asks Nicky. 

“Ai,” says Joe, outraged. “What have I done to merit this kind of cruelty from your lips?”

“It would explain a lot.”

“You’re being _mean_ to me, Nicolo.”

“And you’re being pushy,” says Nicky. Joe almost goes to answer, but he doesn’t; he can hear the way that Nicky’s voice goes sharp when he’s exhausted, and it steals away his words better than any punch to the throat. “I can’t do it. I _won’t_ do it.”

Joe looks up, up, up: the clouds have dissipated just enough for him to see the shine of three stars in a row, Orion’s belt. The two stars running diagonally down: the middle one not a star but a nebula, so dark it’s not really visible in such cloudy conditions. 

He remembers sailing the ocean by those stars. He remembers holding Nicolo then, as they both wept for Quynh. As they both accepted that they’d never be able to find her.

(Stars represent grief for Booker, and for Joe, but here is the difference: they are his family’s souls in Booker’s eyes, but they are the light too weak to illuminate the ocean’s depths in Joe’s.)

They’ve had this conversation before. Joe knows how this ends. 

“We have to,” he says wearily.

Nicky- Nicky does _something,_ rolling on his branch and gripping with his thighs and something else, too, that Joe doesn’t know, or care about, because Nicky’s suddenly on him, and he’s kissing Joe with swift, biting nips that make Joe startle hard enough to knock him off the tree.

“Ow,” says Joe, coughing, flat on his back.

Then Nicky drops besides him, and kisses him again, hot and smearing, and Joe lets himself be drawn into it until mulch starts seeping into his pants. 

“Okay, okay,” he says, laughing, before he pushes Nicky up. “Yes, alright, I get it.”

...

Deathless life only ever led Joe to believe in devilry. The first miracle that he ever knows is a white hand releasing a sword hilt. The second miracle that he ever knows is Nicky’s hand on his jaw, lips on Joe’s. 

Here is a truth that will never be told: Joe asked Nicky to lay down arms first, but it was Nicky who actually listened.

...

“I can’t just let it go.”

“I know.”

“There has to be a price.”

“I know.”

“You still don’t feel the same way.”

“I don’t.”

“Nicky,” says Joe, helplessly.

Nicky threads his fingers through the hair at the nape of Joe’s neck. “There is no price high enough,” he says. “There never can be.”

“So we just forgive him.”

“Yusuf,” says Nicky, very, very seriously. “I leave the anger to you.”

Allah help him, but Joe understands. 

...

Joe is nearing a thousand years of age. He has spent a good ninety-seven decades of them with Nicky at his side. Trust? He has pressed trust into Nicky’s palms like it’s blood and water and life. He has accepted Nicky’s trust in return, cradled in his palms as delicately as a silver-feathered dove. 

...

“A hundred years,” he says, and Andy asks him: “Is this your decision or Nicky’s?” and Joe answers, “It’s ours,” and it’s about as much the truth as he’s ever spoken in his life.


End file.
